Paul Wittgenstein (pianist)

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Paul Wittgenstein

Paul Wittgenstein (born May 11, 1887 in Vienna , † March 3, 1961 in Manhasset , New York ) was an American pianist of Austrian origin. Despite the loss of his right arm as a result of a war injury, he continued his career and commissioned numerous piano works for the left hand from contemporary composers.

Life

Paul Carl Hermann Wittgenstein comes from the German-Austrian Wittgenstein family . He was born the son of the industrialist Karl Wittgenstein and his wife Leopoldine (née Kalmus, 1850–1926) and had seven siblings. Two years later his brother, the later philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein , was born. His parents were very musical, his father played the horn and violin, his mother, a student of Karl Goldmark , was an excellent pianist. His parents' house was often visited by prominent personalities from cultural life, for example Joseph Joachim introduced him to Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann . Other guests included Pablo Casals , Eduard Hanslick , Max Kalbeck , Gustav Mahler , Erica Morini, Arnold Schönberg , Marie Soldat-Röger , Richard Strauss and Bruno Walter and the Rosé Quartet , with whom the young Wittgenstein sometimes played together; with Strauss he also shared a predilection for the works of Louis Spohr .

Paul Wittgenstein (front left) with siblings

Paul Wittgenstein studied piano with Malvine Bree and later with the famous Theodor Leschetizky . A number of noteworthy reviews appeared about his debut on June 26, 1913 at the Wiener Musikverein . With the beginning of the First World War he was drafted into the army. During an attack in Poland near Zamość , he was wounded and captured by Russian soldiers, and his right arm was amputated. Thanks to an exchange program run by the Red Cross , Wittgenstein was released from a POW camp in Omsk and was back in Vienna at Christmas 1915. In 1917 he was awarded the Great Silver Medal for Bravery of the k. u. k. Army excellent. Despite his disability, he served on the staff on the Italian front until 1918.

During his recovery, he had decided to continue his pianist career, despite the lack of his right hand. For this he operated u. a. the new edition of Wilhelm Tappert's Fifty Exercises for the Left Hand alone and made use of compositions by Franz Liszt for Géza Graf Zichy . After the war, Wittgenstein continued his plans, he studied intensively and himself arranged works by Bach , Beethoven , Chopin , Grieg , Mendelssohn Bartholdy , Haydn , Meyerbeer , Mozart , Puccini , Schubert , Schumann , Johann Strauss or Wagner for the left hand alone. He studied new pieces that his old teacher Josef Labor , who was blind himself, had written for him. In addition, he began to commission works for piano for the left hand from well-known contemporary composers. Many of these pieces are still often played by two-handed pianists, but they are also played by pianists who have also lost the use of their right hand, such as Leon Fleisher at times .

In 1929 Maurice Ravel composed a piano concerto in D major for him, the concerto for the left hand . There was, however, a scandal before the premiere, as Wittgenstein had changed the musical text in some serious ways and Ravel expressly disapproved of these interventions. In the correspondence between the two artists, Wittgenstein tried to defend himself to the effect that interpreters should not be the composers' slaves. With Ravel's brief reaction: "Interpreters are slaves", however, the break was finally completed.

From 1931 to 1938 Wittgenstein led a piano class at the New Vienna Conservatory . One of his students, Hilde Schania (1915–2001), became his lover in 1934; they married in Havana in 1940 and had two daughters and a son.

After Austria was annexed to Nazi Germany , Paul tried to convince his two sisters, Hermine and Helene, to leave Vienna ( Ludwig had been living in England for several years), but they refused because they were too attached to their homeland and did not believe that such a distinguished family was in real danger. Wittgenstein's grandfather, Heinrich Christian , had converted to Protestantism , but his father Karl Wittgenstein had his children raised Roman Catholic, but for the National Socialists and their Nuremberg Laws they remained Jews . Only after a payment of 1.8 million Swiss francs were they recognized as " half-breeds " and were thus able to continue living in Austria. Wittgenstein himself was not prepared to come to terms with the Nazis in any way. He turned down his sisters' "business", which led to a lifelong break with the family. He was banned from performing in public and even banned from teaching without pay, so he decided to leave the country. In 1938 he emigrated to the USA via Switzerland . Since August 2020, a stumbling block in Salzburg has been a reminder of his eviction.

In 1946 he became a US citizen . He lived near New York City and taught piano in New Rochelle (NY), at the Ralph Wolfe Conservatory (1938–1943) and in New York at the Manhattanville College of the Sacred Heart (1940–1945).

Paul Wittgenstein died as the last of the eight Wittgenstein siblings in 1961 of heart failure. His widow survived him by four decades. After her death, the estate of three and a half tons came to the Sotheby’s auction house in London, where it was auctioned on May 22, 2003. Most of it is now in the private Paul Wittgenstein archive in Hong Kong . His son Paul-Louis, born in 1941, lives in Austria.

Compositions for Paul Wittgenstein

(The world premieres were all played by Wittgenstein himself, unless otherwise stated.)

  • Sergei Eduardowitsch Bortkiewicz :
    • Piano Concerto in E minor No. 2 for the left hand , op. 28; World premiere in Vienna on November 29th 1923, conductor: Eugen Pabst.
  • Rudolf Braun :
    • Concerto in A minor (1927/28).
  • Walter breaks :
    • Variations on an Old German Children Song for piano (left hand), flute and cello, op. 40 (1942).
  • Benjamin Britten :
    • Diversions for piano (left hand) and orchestra, op. 21 (1940, revised version 1954); Premiere : January 16, 1942 in Philadelphia, Academy of Music, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy .
  • Hans Gál :
    • Piano quartet in A major (1926/27); WP: 1928.
  • Leopold Godowsky :
    • Symphonic metamorphoses about the “Schatz-Waltzer” from “ Der Zigeunerbaron ” by Johann Strauss (May 1928); von Wittgenstein not listed.
  • Paul Hindemith :
    • Piano music with orchestra , op. 29 (1923); WP: December 9, 2004 in Berlin; Leon Fleisher , Berliner Philharmoniker, Simon Rattle .
  • Erich Wolfgang Korngold :
    • Piano Concerto for the Left Hand , Op. 17; Premiere: September 22nd, 1924 in Vienna, Wiener Symphoniker, Erich Wolfgang Korngold
    • Suite for 2 violins, violoncello and piano (left hand) , op. 23 (1930); Premiere: October 21, 1930 in Vienna, Mittlerer Konzerthaussaal with Paul Wittgenstein and the Rosé Quartet .
  • Josef Labor :
    • Variations in D major for piano left hand (1915)
    • Concert piece for piano and orchestra in E flat major (1923); Premiere: November 10, 1923 in the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Rudolf Nilius .
  • Sergei Prokofiev :
    • Piano Concerto No. 4 in B flat major , op. 53 for the left hand (1931); von Wittgenstein not publicly listed.
  • Maurice Ravel :
    • Concerto in D major for the left hand (1929/30); Premiere: January 5th, 1932 in Vienna.
  • Felix Rosenthal :
    • Romance and Impromptu for the left hand. No performance known during Wittgenstein's lifetime.
  • Moriz Rosenthal :
    • New Viennese Carneval on themes by Johann Strauss for the left hand alone (before 1935).
    • Fantasy on Gounod's Faust (undated manuscript: “Paul Wittgenstein appropriated in admiration by Moritz Rosenthal”).
    • Un poco serioso (undated manuscript with notes by Wittgenstein).
    • Air de Ballet , Pizzicato-Polka by Léo Delibes, arranged for the left hand.
  • Franz Schmidt :
    • Concert Variations on a Theme by Beethoven (1923); Premiere: February 2nd, 1924 in the Wiener Konzerthaus with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Julius Prüwer .
    • Quintet for piano and string quartet in G major (1926).
    • Quintet for piano, clarinet and string trio in B flat major (1932); Premiere: March 16, 1933 in the Wiener Konzerthaus, Schubert-Saal, with the Sedlak-Winkler-Quartet, Leopold Wlach, clarinet, and Herbert Magg, violoncello.
    • Piano Concerto in E flat major (1934).
    • Quintet for piano, clarinet and string trio in A major (1938).
    • Toccata in D minor for piano, left hand alone (1938).
  • Eduard Schuett :
    • Paraphrase for piano and orchestra (1929); Premiere on June 27, 1929 in Vienna.
  • Henry Selbing :
    • Eight easy and intermediate, instructive and melodic performance pieces for piano, left hand alone .
  • Richard Strauss :
    • Parergon to the Sinfonia domestica (1924/25); Premiere: October 6, 1925 in Dresden.
    • Panathenaic train. Symphonic etudes in the form of a Passacaglia for piano (left hand) and orchestra , op. 74 and TrV 254 (1927); Premiere: January 16, 1928 in Berlin.
    • Exercises for the Left Hand (1926).
  • Jenő Takács :
    • Toccata and Fuge , op. 56 (1951); Sent back by Wittgenstein unlisted.
  • Alexandre Tansman :
    • Concert piece for the left hand (1943).
  • Ernest Walker :
    • Variations on an Original Theme for piano, clarinet and string trio , o. Op. (1933).
    • Study for the Left Hand op.47 (1931).
    • Prelude (Larghetto) , op.61 (1935).
  • Karl Weigl :
    • Concerto for piano left hand and orchestra (1924).
  • Juliusz Wolfsohn :
    • Adaptation of the Danube waltz for the left hand (around 1930).

Fonts

See also

literature

  • Irene Suchy , Allan Janik , Georg Predota (eds.): Empty Sleeve: The musician and patron Paul Wittgenstein. Studienverlag, Innsbruck a. a. 2006, ISBN 3-7065-4296-X .
  • Oliver Sacks : The one-armed pianist. About music and the brain. Rowohlt, Reinbek near Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-498-06376-4 . The title and a chapter refer to Paul Wittgenstein, original title: Musicophilia. Tales of Music and Brain , 2007.
  • Alexander Waugh: The Wittgenstein House. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt a. M. 2010, ISBN 978-3-596-18228-2 .

Lexica entries

Novels

Web links

Commons : Paul Wittgenstein  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ Stolpersteine ​​Salzburg - Places & Biographies. 28 stumbling blocks, including Paul Wittgenstein, relocated on August 17, 2020 at Max-Reinhardt-Platz. Retrieved August 17, 2020 .
  2. ↑ The Hunt for the Lost Concert . Paul Hindemith: Piano Music with Orchestra, op.29 (PDF, 33 kB)
personal data
SURNAME Wittgenstein, Paul
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pianist
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH March 3, 1961
Place of death Manhasset , New York